


On The Shores of Dark Waters

by NicoRiddle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Albus Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy is a Good Boyfriend, Draco and Harry raise Tom, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Good Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Raises Tom Riddle, Harry raises Tom, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Tom Riddle, Powerful Harry Potter, Raising Tom Riddle, Salazar Slytherin's Locket, Smart Harry Potter, Time Travel, Tom Riddle is His Own Warning, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Young Tom Riddle, causes trouble, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29882586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoRiddle/pseuds/NicoRiddle
Summary: When Auror Potter was partnered to work with Curse Breaker Malfoy on a new mission, he certainly did not expect it to go well. He also did expect them to fuck it up so bad that they ended up in 1935. Instead of going back to a wizarding world riddled with loss and grief, they choose to take the matter to their own hand and try to prevent Tom Riddle from ever becoming Voldemort. Because nothing can ever go wrong with Harry Potter around.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Tom Riddle, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51





	On The Shores of Dark Waters

“Absolutely not,” Harry shook his head vehemently, looking at his boss. 

“Don’t be daft, Potter,” the head auror replied with a glare of his own. It made Harry feel small, despite the fact that Kingsley was sitting in front of him, with his large desk standing as a barrier between the two of them. The regal looking man always had this aura around him that commanded respect, no matter how bonkers the words that came out of his mouth were.

“No way, I’m not working with _him_ ,” Harry nodded his head to the side.

“ _He_ can hear you perfectly well,” came the reply from the ferret-face standing next to him. Merlin, just hearing his voice made Harry want to roll his eyes.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry spat at his companion as he kept his gaze on the man in front of him. “Kingsley, this is quite possibly the worst idea you’ve ever had,” he said, resisting the urge to furl his fingers into a fist. 

It was just the three of them in the large office room, but the tension seeped into the air thick and suffocating, and Harry would rather be anywhere else at the moment, if he were honest with himself. 

“You need his expertise, Potter,” Shacklebolt reasoned his decision to pair him up with Malfoy of all people. As if they would be able to last more than five minutes without tearing each other’s throats apart. “He knows more about what you might find in that safe house than any other curse breaker,” Kingsley said, picking up a thin folder from the mountain of paperwork that cluttered his workspace.

“The Lestranges have been dead for a decade, Kingsley, I’m sure I can deal with any object I might find in there,” Harry said confidently. It was true, magical objects and wards tended to lose power as time went on, if there was nobody to draw magic from to recharge them. Of course, some curses could last centuries before running out of power, but Harry had been an auror long enough that he should be able to deal with those without any problem.

“I will not let you in there alone,” his boss repeated what he’d been telling Harry for years. They both knew that it was much safer for him to work with a partner, but ever since Ron had chosen to retire from field duty after the birth of their first child with Hermione, there had been nobody else that Harry was able to work with as smoothly. He very much preferred to go alone, which was a constant source of conflict between him and Shacklebolt.

“Then assign me with someone else,” he practically pleaded the man. Harry would have probably begged out loud, if it wasn’t for the fact that the ferret-faced blond git was right there next to him in Kingsley’s office.

It wasn’t that the two of them had had a bad relationship over the last decade. In fact, they hadn’t had a relationship at all. After the end of the war, the last time they spoke was when Harry handed Malfoy his wand back when he was acquitted by the Wizengamot. He hadn’t seen the blond since, because despite his testimonies in the court in favour of Malfoy’s acquittal, there were many conflicting emotions that Harry felt towards him. He knew that his once-enemy hadn’t been entirely willing in his participation in the war, and without him Harry and his friends would have probably died in Malfoy Manor during their capture, but the lifelong hatred he’d felt for the man wasn’t just something he could let go of.

Instead, they went their separate ways after the war, both throwing themselves into their work as a way to deal with their emotions. At least, that’s what Harry had done. He wasn’t sure what Malfoy’s reasons were for not focusing on anything other than his studies and work over the years, but he suspected that they stemmed from similar roots as Harry’s.

“Malfoy by far the most skilled curse breaker in the country, especially concerning cursed objects,” Kingsley said, and from his peripheral vision Harry saw the blond straighten his spine at the praise. The arrogant bastard.

“I don’t trust him,” he told Shacklebolt, glaring at Malfoy without directly turning to face him. A not-so-subtle side-eye, if it could be called that.

“He has been nothing but loyal to the Ministry in the last decade,” Kingsley sighed, and Harry saw that there was be nothing he could say that would change the man’s mind “I know you’ve had your differences in the past, but this suspicion of yours is entirely unwarranted, I assure you,” he said seemingly reassuringly, but Harry had worked with the man for long enough to know that his tight tone meant that he was unwilling to discuss the matter further.

“Alright,” Harry sighed in acceptance. “But if it doesn’t go well, that’s on you,” he shot a friendly glare at his boss, whose only reaction was a raised eyebrow at his antics.

“How generous of you, Potter,” came the sarcastic drawl from Malfoy and Harry’s head snapped to the left on its own accord.

“You’re still on thin ice, Malfoy,” he shot back immediately.

“I’m sure it’s going to be a pleasure to work with you,” the blond retorted. 

It came easy as breathing; the bickering between them. It was as if no time had passed, no war had happened, and they were still in their early Hogwarts years and mostly free from worries. 

Harry refused to admit it, but it was kind of nice. Reassuring. Possibly the only constant in his life that lasted through the war. It was weirdly comforting to have it back.

“Gentlemen, if you please,” the head auror admonished them, his annoyed tone reminding Harry of all the times McGonagall had had to step in to stop his and Malfoy’s sharp exchanges of words from escalating into a full-blown duel or fistfight.

“What’s the intel, Kings?” Harry quirked an eyebrow at the man.

“Two story safe house, possible basement,” Shacklebolt opened the thin case folder and showed them a photo of the building. It was a magical photograph, as was standard in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but the only thing that showed it in the picture itself was the slight shimmer of a colourful bubble around the house. “Heavily warded, it appeared on our radar yesterday,” the black man told them, and both wizards received the unsaid message: be very cautious, this case is suspicious.

“Why now? The war has been over for ten years,” the blond asked what all three of them were thinking, and Kingsley shook his head slightly in response.

“I don’t know, Malfoy, but I need both of you to be very careful in there,” he said to Malfoy but was looking directly at Harry, as if he were trying to tell him to behave.

“Great,” Harry let out a long breath. This was going to be tough.

“Grab your kits and meet me at the portkey room in an hour,” Kingsley dismissed them, and Harry turned on his heel and left the room without even glancing at his newfound partner.

As soon as he arrived at the portkey room, the only place within the Ministry of Magic where the wards allowed registered workers to apparate and portkey in and out of the building without any hassle, Harry spun on his heel and disappeared with a quiet pop.

It didn’t take him long to prepare for the mission, he grabbed his always-packed bag that he took with him on any assignment so that he wouldn’t have to worry about the basics when he got into a tight spot. It didn’t contain much, just a wizarding tent with a bedroom, a kitchen and a stocked potions laboratory in case he needed a quick potion or got injured and needed to brew something specific. The bag wasn’t too big, but it held enough food, clothes, money and other essentials to last him a few months on his undercover missions. Standard DMLE issued, since very often they were sent out to missions without any warning, so they always had to be prepared, but Harry made sure to add some personal tune-ups.

Hopefully however, this one shouldn’t take too long, maximum a couple days for the two of them to work their way through the Lestrange safe house. With Draco bloody Malfoy as his partner. How wonderful.

Thankfully, it wasn’t his time to take care of Teddy, who was with his grandmother Andromeda for the rest of the week. Still, Harry sent a quick patronus message to the woman to make sure that she knew what happened, just in case something unexpected happened on the mission. 

Ron and Hermione were less likely to worry about him in the next couple of days as he’d just seen them the day before when he babysat their toddler, Rose, and their infant, little baby Hugo, so that his two friends would finally have a calm, kid-free night for the first time in the months since their second child was born. However, he knew that if he didn’t check in with them in the next couple of days, they would start to worry about him, so he made sure to leave them a note on his kitchen table that explained his absence.

Making sure that he had everything he needed for the mission, Harry changed into his tactical wear. It had been a long fight with the Ministry for them to agree to discard battle robes as mission wear for the aurors, but thankfully now the standard-issue outfit consisted of black military trousers, a simple black shirt, and a robe-like, hip-length outer jacket for tradition’s sake. After a quick once-over look of himself in the full-length hallway mirror that occupied the place where once Walburga’s awful portrait sat, Harry grabbed his thankfully featherlight bag and apparated back to the Ministry, not surprised to see his companions waiting for him already.

“Kingsley, Malfoy,” he greeted them as he adjusted his jacket under the strap of his bag that crossed over his chest. Dragonhide jackets were great in terms of the protections that they provided, but they sure as Merlin were uncomfortable to wear under anything else. They took a good while to break in, and Harry’s was recently replaced with a new one.

“Nice to see you on time, Potter,” Malfoy mocked after a skipped beat, falling right back into their old dynamics “Must be a special occasion,” he smirked at Harry. It was the first opportunity Harry had to really look at the man that his old rival had become.

Malfoy’s once platinum blond hair had darkened some over the years, he had grown it out and it sat on the back of his head in a messily organised bun, one that the old Malfoy never would have been caught dead wearing. His attire was similar to Harry’s, except for the addition of a curse breaker’s utility belt that adorned his hips. 

He’d changed a lot since Harry had last seen him, after the trial. Malfoy had filled out a little and put on some muscle, no longer the tall, scrawny kid that he’d once been, but a man obviously well trained in battle.

“Shut it,” Harry glared at him, hoping that it would be enough provide cover for his staring.

“We do not have time for this,” Kingsley rolled his eyes at the two of them, calling their attention to the empty glass vial in his hand. “The portkey will drop you off just outside of the wards surrounding the safe house. Your mission includes breaking the wards and infiltrating the house to see if we can find any useful information on other safe houses where the remaining Death Eaters might be hiding. Inspect every object you suspect to be of interest but be very careful, we do not know what could have festered there over the years,” he instructed, making sure to look both wizards straight in the eye to make sure they both understood the gravity of the situation.

“Understood,” Harry and Malfoy murmured in unison.

“Thirty seconds until drop-off,” Kinsley handed Harry the vial, who held it out so that the blond next to him could also touch it. “Good luck,” with that, the man left the portkey room, leaving the two in awkward silence, both clutching the glass, until they felt the nauseating pull of the portkey in their navel.

Landing softly on the balls of his heel, Harry immediately looked around to assess their surroundings. He could feel the faint magic of the wards, and when he let his magic out to get a better feel, he saw the faint sparkles of the interwoven threads of magic that made up the wards.

“Well, that’s a surprise,” he heard Malfoy from behind him, his leering smirk apparent in his voice without Harry having to see his face.

“What?” Harry bit out, standing up straight and staring the blond right in his stormy grey eyes, cursing the fact that even after all these years, the other wizard was still a good ten centimetres taller than him.

“I was half expecting to have to scrape you up from the ground. I’m glad to see that you’ve managed to learn something over the years, if not manners,” Malfoy smirked, and Harry’s hand twitched.

“Don’t push your luck, I’m already fighting the urge to curse you out of existence,” he glared.

“How scary,” Malfoy snorted, and Harry rolled his eyes.

“We don’t have time for this, we have a job to do,” he said, taking his wand from its holster on his thigh and preparing to cast analysis charms on the wards to know what he was up against. “I’ll deal with the wards, be on the lookout for any runic interferences,” he told Malfoy. 

“Yessir,” the blond replied somewhat joking, somewhat serious.

They both knew how much trust they would have to place into each other in the next day or so, starting with the dismantling of the wards that was probably one of the most dangerous parts of the mission. There was a reason that aurors were sent out in pairs, it was very hard to look out for both regularly cast magic and runic magic, so while Harry would dismantle the wards, he knew he had to trust Malfoy to have his back and stay alert just in case the safehouse had runic warding around it. Harry hoped not, since if they were anchored to runes, it would make it infinitely harder to pull the threads of magic apart.

It took Harry a good while to just cast analytic spells before he actually got to taking the wards apart. He let his magic out and used his wand only to guide his magic as it worked to split apart the tightly woven thread work of magic that blanketed the safehouse like a protective cocoon. It was hard work, not necessarily requiring a lot of magic, but a lot of attention as the smallest of mistakes could result in the most disastrous of effects. The November chill was the only reason that Harry didn’t break out in sweat from the concentration.

Finally, after a good amount of time, the last threads had been pulled apart, and the house a couple hundred metres from them came into clear view.

Harry looked Malfoy behind him, only to find the blond staring at him with a calculating expression on his face. Furrowing his brows in confusion, Harry decided that it wasn’t the time or the place to deal with stupid schoolboy rivalries, so he looked back at the house.

“Let’s head in,” he stated, and not even checking if Malfoy was following him, he made his way towards the house through a field of overgrown weeds. 

It didn’t take them long to get to the front door of the house, and an opening charm later they were free to enter the ground floor of the building. The hinges creaked as Harry pushed the door open, revealing the dark, dusty hallway. He lit up his wand and took a couple steps inside, going slowly so that he could take in the surroundings, and Malfoy followed shortly behind. 

The hallway was long, the walls were dark and covered in old, dusty wallpaper. Harry looked around as he cautiously approached one of the doors.

“Freeze,” he heard Malfoy call out, and his training immediately kicked in. He stopped mid-movement for a second, until his partner could specify the danger. “Don’t step on that rug,” Malfoy said, and Harry looked down where he’d almost stepped on the beautiful, brightly coloured afghan. Spreading out his magic to get a better feel, Harry saw that the blond had been right, the rug was radiating dark magic.

“Thanks, Malfoy,” he nodded to the other wizard gratefully.

Making sure to avoid the rug, Harry opened the door. Peering in, he saw that it was only a kitchen, it probably held nothing of primary importance, and they would have time to come back and inspect it later. 

At the end of the hallway there was one more door on the left side, and a staircase leading to the upper floor. Glancing at Malfoy, the two wizards silently agreed to check the room on the ground floor first. Harry moved to open the door, which revealed a study-library room, with a huge desk covered in rolls of parchment, an empty fireplace, and heavy bookcases and shelves covering the walls. Stepping inside, both wizards spread out their magic, and Malfoy was quick to cast a couple detection charms in various directions.

“Some of those objects have some very heavy curses on them. I can’t tell you exactly what yet, but some of them are definitely dark artefacts. The books are mostly fine, but don’t touch that black one over there and that red one,” he told Harry.

“Got it,” Harry affirmed.

He moved to take a look at the pieces of parchment that lay scattered across the table. Making sure that none of them were cursed, he unrolled the pieces and scanned through a bunch of them while Malfoy dealt with the cursed objects. He found some notes about various potions recipes and other subjects, but there were no mentions of any other safe houses from what he could see. The desk was a good start, but Harry wanted to make sure that he was not wasting his time reading through all those pieces of parchment when there was a possibility that there were more important things hiding upstairs.

“I’ll head upstairs to check it out. I don’t suspect we’ll find anything of importance, it’s probably just some bedrooms,” he told Malfoy, who gave an absent hum in response, focused on whatever spell he was casting on an ugly ceramic vase.

The stairs groaned as Harry took them step by step. The upper floor was much nicer than the corridor downstairs, not as dark and claustrophobia-inducing. Alert, Harry slowly moved to check out the room immediately to his right when he heard Malfoy call out from downstairs.

“Potter!” Immediately, Harry hurried back to the library room and saw Malfoy pointing his wand at one of the walls. “There’s a hidden room behind that fireplace,” the blond said, and Harry felt his magic confirm it. He couldn’t believe how he hadn’t noticed it the first time.

“Can you open it?” 

“It’s heavily warded,” Malfoy told him, and Harry felt it too, the oppressive and heavy magic coming from the wall. “That’s more your expertise than mine,” the blond said, and moved so that Harry could have better access.

“Let me,” he pointed his wand at the wall, and began working the wards the same way as he had the outside ones.

It took a little while to get the threads to untangle, since every single colour of magic thread corresponded to a different warding spell, and they had to be dismantled separately. When he was done, Harry simply put his hand against the wall and a block of it turned, revealing a spiral staircase leading downwards.

“Looks like there’s a basement after all,” Malfoy noted and looked at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“Let’s go,” Harry said, crinkling his nose as the smell hit it when he took the first step downwards.

When they reached the end of the staircase, they saw that the whole basement area was a single room that had probably been used as a laboratory. There was a shelf with various long-expired potion ingredients that were probably the cause of the Merlin-awful smell. Malfoy was quick to cast a bubble head charm on both of them, and Harry sent a grateful look in his direction.

“There’s not much in here,” Malfoy noted, looking around.

But Harry wasn’t paying attention to him.

No, something caught his eye. Something that couldn’t have possibly been there.

It called out to him, just like the real one did.

“Potter?” Malfoy asked, alarmed, but Harry barely heard him.

“Impossible,” he whispered as he took a step closer, increasing the magnitude of his Lumos.

The emeralds gleamed, reflecting the light across the room.

Emeralds laid in a gold pendant in a letter S.

Slytherin’s locket.

“What are you doing?” Malfoy called out at him.

The locket was calling out to him, just like the horcrux had. But that was impossible, since the locket had been destroyed and he wasn’t a horcrux anymore.

“No, it can’t be,” he murmured, reaching out for the locket. He had to make sure that it wasn’t a horcrux. 

He had to make sure that Voldemort was really dead.

“Potter, don’t touch that!” Malfoy shouted in panic, grabbing Harry’s wand hand to pull him back, but it was too late.

Harry’s slim fingers circled around the locket.

And suddenly, the locket exploded in an array of colours before everything turned black.

***

Harry groaned as he regained his consciousness. The first thing that he felt was that Malfoy and him were tangled together awkwardly, alongside with both their bags and equipment in a messy pile, though he thankfully noted that the other wizard was still unconscious. The second thing that immediately came to his attention was the fact that they were outside and it was dark, only the brightness of the stars gave any light around them. That, and that there was noise. A constant buzz of life around them, the sounds of birds hooting and rodents scurrying from tree to tree.

They were in a forest. At night. How wonderful.

Untangling himself from Malfoy, Harry thankfully found his wand right next to where his hand laid on the ground. He lit up a lumos and poked the man next to him a couple times until he showed signs of waking up. It took the blond a couple moments to regain his senses, but as soon as he did, he pushed Harry away from him and his grey eyes sparkled in fury as he glared.

“What the fuck was that, Potter?” Malfoy hissed. Then, realising that they weren’t in the safe house’s lab anymore, he looked around. “Where the hell are we?”

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. This situation was his fault and he knew it, but he had to check it out. “I thought… It felt exactly like…” he had to make sure that the locket wasn’t a horcrux.

“Like what, Potter?” Malfoy spat at him, rightfully so. It was stupid of him to actually touch that damn thing, but the way it had called out his magic, it was so painfully familiar.

“Never mind,” he dismissed. Malfoy mustn’t know about horcruxes. “We should probably find out where we are, it’s dark so we’ve probably been out for a couple hours,” Harry said, and moved his bag aside so that he could stand up, as did the blond wizard.

The locket.

Where was it? Harry aimed the light of his wand at the ground, but there was nothing there.

Panicking, Harry pumped more power into his lumos and the light brightened, illuminating the small clearing that they were occupying, surrounded by thick, dark woods.

The locket was nowhere to be found.

Wonderful.

“Potter,” Malfoy called out to get his attention.

“What?” Harry didn’t understand what Malfoy was doing. 

Why wasn’t he looking for the locket? That was what got them where they were, and it was what would be able to get them back.

“It’s warm,” his partner said tentatively, and Harry looked at him in confusion. “We’re in the middle of the forest, at night might I also add, and it’s warm,” he clarified, as if that was supposed to mean anything to Harry.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, and he could feel how hard Malfoy resisted the urge to facepalm, settling for an unamused eyeroll instead.

“It’s November, you absolute moron,” Malfoy said, and Harry realised that the blond was right. It was too warm to be November. 

He snuffed out the lumos so that the light wouldn’t brighten out the illuminating digits that shot out of his wand as he cast the Tempus spell, spelling the exact date and time in large, glowing numbers.

“I guess it’s not,” Harry stated the obvious, stomach clenching as if he’d been sucker punched. “Since it’s the 12th of May, 1935,” as he said it out loud, he had to resist the urge to gag as he felt bile rising up his throat.

“Merlin fucking damn it Potter, what the fuck did you get us into?”


End file.
